At the Break of Dawn
by Elialys
Summary: Post 4x14. Peter is desperate to get back home, and a clue left by September might help him find his way at last. Meanwhile, Olivia decides to use an old method to try and get rid of these memories everybody claims aren't hers…
1. Part One

**Disclaimer: **How I wish I owned them all. We would have blue!scenes in every episode.

**Spoilers**: All the way up to 4x14 '_The End of All Things_'

**Rating:** T to be safe. We never know with me.

**Summary**: Peter is desperate to get back home, and a clue left by September might help him find his way at last. Meanwhile, Olivia decides to use an old method to try and get rid of these memories everybody claims aren't hers...

**A/N: **Not much to say, really. The hiatus is killing me slowly, and we still have two weeks to go, so I'm keeping busy. This should have about 4 or 5 parts I think, featuring post 4x14 P/O angst, tank explorations and other kinds of mind trips. I've based some things in this story on a few glimpses from the 4x15 promo, but I won't put any big spoiler from the episode in there, I promise; just the promo. I'll do my best to complete it by March 23rd.

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><p><strong>AT THE BREAK OF DAWN<strong>

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><p><strong>PART ONE<strong>

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><p><em>Olivia once told Peter about her fondness for sunrises.<em>

_It was a bit unusual of her. Both the fondness itself and the admission. Despite everything she has seen, everything she has been through, Olivia _does_ manage to see some beauty in the world surrounding her on occasions; it's rare, but it happens. Generally speaking, though, she tends to see the glass half empty rather than half full, that is a fact._

_But she has always loved sunrises, and that is a fact, too. And it has nothing to do with some cheesy or romantic notions. She has come to love that time of day when she was very young. _

_When you spend the night terrified of the darkness that has swallowed your room, a fear only exacerbated by experiments that are being conducted on you on a daily basis, there is something deeply reassuring in seeing the sun rise, in feeling its rays warm up the space around you, brushing away the shadows of the night to replace them with light. At a later age, she also comes to associate nights with drunken screams and weeping pleas, with bloody noses and broken bones, the darkness having taken the shape of a man she eventually shoots twice, only to spend the rest of her life wishing she had shot thrice. _

_Even as an adult, having long ago stopped being scared of the dark –or scared of anything else for that matter, nights remain difficult for Olivia, and mostly sleepless. Time stretches during the night; the darkness feels thick and smothering, filled with the victims' voices, and that is when her doubts are the most deafening._

_But no matter what, the sun always rises, and she breathes better in the dim light of dawn. For a few moments there, she allows herself to hope that this new day will be a good one._

_Olivia has always loved sunrises, and she definitely loves them even more since she has started experiencing them with Peter –though he sleeps through most of them, oblivious to the quiet beauty surrounding them. _

_He's just as oblivious to the way she usually uses that time to stare at him relentlessly without risking getting caught up in his gaze. And he's beautiful, truly, and it has nothing to do with the fact that her perception is altered by her feelings for him. She remembers meeting him in Iraq and thinking he was handsome, even back then. He had been a real pain in the ass, that's for sure, but a handsome pain in the ass nonetheless._

_Now, she simply has months and months of memories, of moments spent with him, getting to know him inside and out just as well as he knows her. Those moments and memories, the knowledge that his kind soul has found hers somehow, they make him that much more beautiful to her, in intricate ways she cannot even begin to explain; all that she knows is that it creates this constant ache inside of her, one that she craves as much as she despises._

_And so she stares at him as he sleeps, her eyes roaming over his face, his cheeks almost always completely shaved off these days; it's different. _He_ has been different, lately, with his homesickness hanging so heavily over his head, weighting down on his shoulders and hurting him from deep within. Even now in his sleep, he looks strained, stressed, burdened. But with half of his face buried in his pillow, he still looks more relaxed than he ever does while awake…not around her, anyway. One little thing that never goes away, no matter what, is that crease between his eyes, and she has tried everything to try and make these muscles relax, from a brush of her thumb to the caress of her lips._

_Peter doesn't easily show how much he hurts, but Olivia has come to believe that it all lies there, between his eyes, as if his heavy pain was pressing down, down, down, bending the skin all the way to the bones…_

_Unable to stop herself, she brings one of her hands up. She doesn't touch the crease, though, choosing to run her fingers through his hair instead, slowly, tenderly._

_He opens his eyes, and blinks. Once, twice. Unsurprisingly, she _is_ instantly caught up in his gaze, and she doesn't mind. This feels good. Even though there is a small but very real space between them, their body warmth has pooled beneath the sheets, and the light is soft and comforting around them, as it always is._

_Something is off, though. Something is continually off these days. She knows why they aren't closer, why she only feels the heat that is coming off his skin, instead of feeling it seep directly from his flesh into hers, her limbs entangled tightly with his, like they used to be, before; a painful lump forms in her throat._

_"I love you…" she whispers, her thumbs still tracing slow circles in his hair. He doesn't say anything, doesn't even move, half of his face still hidden in his pillow. "I wish you would trust me," she continues, a note of despair in her murmur now. "Trust me, Peter, if you can't trust yourself."_

_He finally moves. One of his hands comes up to grab hers, gently but decisively, moving it away from his face, before letting it go without ceremony. It falls between them, in that space keeping them apart, a space that is quickly losing all its warmth, and she starts to feel so cold as he shakes his head, his eyes empty._

_"I can't trust you", he says then, his voice as adamant as his eyes. "You're not her. You're not my Olivia." _

As Olivia wakes up with a jolt, the last of his words echo in her head.

_"I have to go home..."_

She's a bit confused for a second or two, finding herself lying in bed exactly the way she had been a moment ago in what she knows now had been a dream, despite how real it had felt. Her dreams always feel too real.

The light in her room isn't soft and comforting; it's grey and bleak. Another rainy day.

Her eyes stare at the empty space next to her, still trying to get a grip on her ragged breathing; the lump she's felt in her dream is already getting worse, spreading quickly to constrict her entire chest. Instinctively, she brings her hand up again, spreading it over the cold linen of a pillow that used to be his, a timeline ago.

Her fingers slowly clench, digging into the soft fabric as her legs come higher, closer to her chest, and she curls up, turning her face into her own pillow; for what seems to be the thousandth time this week, she's begging the stinging sensation in her eyes to disappear, just like she's begging the pain in her chest to let her be. Instead, it worsens with every passing second.

There is not much she can do about it, sadly, no matter how much she hates feeling like she has no control over her emotions, or how they seem to be controlling her, which is even worse. It doesn't matter how much she would give anything right now to make this stop, to go back to that blurry point in time, not so long ago, when Peter had been nothing more than an intriguing and troubling stranger.

What is even more appalling is how, despite the fact that he is responsible for her distress, she still wants nothing but the best for him. That's one of those annoying and frustrating things about loving someone so much; you tend to care about their happiness more than you care about your own. She knows his pain is just as real as hers, that the strain she sees on his face even within her dreams is eating him alive.

And ironically, this is exactly why it hurts her so much. Her pain lies in the nature of his longing, in the reason behind his rejection. It is what causes her to fight for air every morning, curled up in a ball as she tries to erase his words from her mind and inexorably fails.

Peter wants to go _home_.

And she still hasn't figured out how she is supposed to make sense of it all so it could ease her pain, when even now, as she hides her grief in her pillow, every inch of her being remains convinced that she is the home he's longing for.

Or at least, she used to be.

Not anymore.

Olivia doesn't love sunrises much these days.

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><p><em>Peter watches her from the doorway.<em>

_She's sitting at her desk, which is mostly buried under piles and piles of documents, like it always seems to be. Olivia has never been the neatest person, and unsurprisingly, what she uses as an office here in this back room of the lab is no exception to her untidiness. She tends to spread out particularly widely when she's trying to have a breakthrough, which is why she's currently going through this huge pile of files, one by one, as thoroughly as ever, because she rarely does things any other way. _

_She has used a pen to entrap her hair in a messy bun, and every two minutes or so, she pushes her glasses back up her nose, just as distractingly as she taps her other pen against the edge of the table. She's focused and intent, and obviously tired and frustrated, but she keeps on going._

_A small smile eventually tugs at the corner of her lips after a while, and she speaks without moving her eyes up from the paper she's reading. "You know, you could always take a seat and help me go through these."_

_Peter can't help a smile of his own. "Ah, but I like the view from here," he says, teasingly._

_She finally looks at him over the edge of her glasses, and he purposefully keeps his gaze lower than her face; her eyes dart down to her shirt, its first two buttons opened, as they usually are. When she meets his eyes again, she offers him a crooked smile, shaking her head slightly. "You're such a man."_

_"And you're such a tease," he replies with a small, cocky grin, walking to the desk at last and taking the seat opposite her. She takes her glasses off with a sigh, then, rubbing the bridge of her nose, running a distracted thumb over the small red line now marking the skin there._

_"What are you working on, anyway," he finally asks, still staring at her, nothing short of mesmerize by her –as he often is, all the while trying to ignore the faint pulsing ache he feels behind his eye. He's been aware of the pain all along, but it's getting quite annoying, now._

_She reopens her eyes to look at him, then, and her eyes are so incredibly green in the dim light of her office. Suddenly, she's looking almost eerily serious, her gaze darkening as she stares at him. "You know what I'm working on, Peter. And honestly, you're not really helping out, when you know that the faster I finish this, the faster we'll go home." She is now offering him her most disapproving look. "I thought you wanted to go home."_

_That low, pulsing pain behind his left eye unexpectedly peaks after hearing her words. He shakes his head with a groan, as if he could shake the sensation away, pressing the heel of his palm upon his closed eye, but it doesn't have any effect whatsoever. Looking back at her with his good eye, he's not surprised to find her still staring at him just as darkly and intently._

_"I'm trying, Olivia," he almost groans, then, the pain becoming unbearable._

_She looks almost angry, now, her face a stony mask, with the exception of her eyes, ablaze in their sockets. "You're not trying hard enough," she retorts, gravely. "You have to stop ignoring what's right in front of you. You have to pay attention. The answers are right there."_

_The pain is excruciating, his palm pressed so hard upon his burning eye that red dots start to erupt in his mind; bent over in half, he is convinced that his head is about to split in two. "I don't know what to do!" he almost shouts._

_"Wake up and _look_," she orders him. "Stop ignoring the clues, Peter. Wake up!"_

When Peter wakes up, his entire body gives an upward jump, as if he had been shocked. His sharp intake of breath is immediately followed by a loud grunt of pain, his hand already up to his face. The pain isn't nearly as bad as it had been in his dream, but it's definitely there, and _real_.

More than a little confused, it takes him a few moments to realize that he isn't in his bedroom at all, but in the living room. He isn't on the couch either; he is sprawled on the ground in the middle of the room. After another few seconds of troubled perplexity, it starts coming back to him. He remembers the pain that had suddenly exploded in his head, right behind his eye, causing him to black out almost instantly. By the feel of it, his fall has resulted in a brand new bump on the back of his head.

With another grunt, he sits up, trying to relax is stiff muscles, his entire body aching from having spent too many hours lying there on the hard wood. It is clearly early morning now, the room filled with the grayish light of a dawn that predicts another rainy day. He's not really able to focus his thoughts on anything but the unrelenting throbbing in his optic nerve. Stumbling a little as he gets back up on his feet -and grimacing exceedingly and a bit dramatically as he does so, he makes his way to the closest mirror, paying close attention to his reflection for once.

He looks like hell, but he can't say he's surprised. He hasn't exactly been sleeping well, and restless sleep tends to be even less invigorating when you decide to take a prolonged nap on the floor. He ignores his pale complexion and his stubble, as well as his untidy hair or the dark shadows under his eyes; he chooses to focus on the eye itself, almost expecting it to be completely bloodshot, considering the amount of pain he's been feeling.

Instead, his left eye appears completely normal, identical to the right one. Both look worn out and a bit crazed, but again, it's nothing unusual these days. His first instinct is to dismiss the pain, to define it as some sort of raging headache, a leftover from the trip into September's mind he took only a few days ago.

But soon, his mind finally starts focusing back on the dream itself. He's not surprised at all by the fact that he had once more dreamed of Olivia. When _doesn't_ he dream of Olivia?

The memory of her voice is just as painful as the ache pulsing in his head.

_"You have to stop ignoring what's right in front of you. You have to pay attention. The answers are right there. Stop ignoring the clues, Peter."_

_Stop ignoring the clues. _

He knows he should listen, whatever his subconscious is trying to tell him; his dreams were right about getting Walter to work with him on the Machine after all. Right now, however, his thoughts aren't on Walter. They remain on Olivia.

His mind is most definitely set on going back home, back to Olivia, to Walter -to his _son_, maybe. He is more than ready to follow any clue that might be given to him, like a mysterious pain in his eye, for example...but once again, he cannot stop himself from quickly thinking about this other Olivia. The Olivia he quite abruptly left standing in the rain, not even a day after proclaiming that he knew she was _his_ Olivia, kissing her with an eagerness that merely reflected how much he had longed for her.

But the truth is, Peter isn't sure of anything anymore.

As he stares at himself, his jaw clenched rigidly, to the point of being painfully, a reaction to the image of Olivia's face from that night rather than to the ache in his eye, Peter wonders _what_ he is supposed to see, exactly.

Because he is looking, he is looking so hard. But everything's a blur.

One thing's for sure: he is going to need Walter's help again.

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><p><em>TBC...<em>

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><p><strong>AN**: I'm writing this mostly for my own sanity, but I know you guys are reading :p Reviews would definitely keep me from getting too lazy.


	2. Part Two

**A/N:** Thank you for the reviews guys :)

I apologize for any mistake in this, I am very _very_ tired.

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><p><strong>AT THE BREAK OF DAWN<strong>

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><p><strong>PART TWO<strong>

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><p>Nina arrives a bit late.<p>

Olivia only becomes aware of her presence when she's standing next to their table, the intruding form in her peripheral vision finally dragging her eyes away from the street, on the other side of the window; she had been staring at the passing people walking up and down the street without really seeing them, once again lost in thoughts that weren't exactly joyful. More out of surprise and habit than anything else, Olivia almost jumps out of her chair, standing back up to offer her a formal greeting, the agent in her well trained to show respect to important figures, no matter who they are or what their history is.

But she keeps forgetting that things are not what they seem, here, and that the bureaucratic gap that once existed between the two women in another place –or time- doesn't belong here. It becomes very clear when Nina, out of habit as well, takes her gesture as an invitation and goes to hug her right away.

It results in an embrace that is quite awkward, to say the least.

Nina swiftly lets go of Olivia when she feels her tensing in her arms, shaking her head apologetically with a forced smile.

"I'm sorry," she says with a wave of her hand. "I shouldn't have…I suppose it's going to take me some time to get used to this new…situation."

She keeps smiling as she speaks, but there is a definite hint of sadness in her voice, as well as in her eyes, which in turns only causes Olivia's uneasiness to worsen. Of all the people who still have to 'get used to this new situation', Olivia has no doubt that she herself is having the worst of it.

"It's alright," she forces herself to say with a smile of her own, sitting back down as Nina does the same on the other side of the table. "I know it's confusing, especially since I'm the one who called you in the first place."

She honestly cannot wrap her head around the genuine look of affection and worry that appears on Nina's face as she takes Olivia in; if she focuses hard enough, she _can_ remember the years she and Rachel have spent living with the older woman, sharing a house, a home even. But these images are blurry, unsubstantial.

There are no actual feelings associated with these memories.

Nina remembers everything, though, that much is obvious, which is why Olivia can understand her concern, her narrowed eyes now roaming over Olivia's face and clothing as if assessing the damage. She understands why Nina's first instinct had been to hug her. She knows what she looks like, even though she's done her best not to look at her reflection, lately.

She quickly averts her eyes, her uneasiness growing under such scrutiny, her fingers playing distractingly with the sleeve of her grey sweater. Broyles has _ordered_ her to take a few days off after the 'Jones incident' as they call it. She hates it, of course, and normally, she would just have shrugged the order off, rolled her eyes and gone to work anyway, but she has found herself in a bit of a situation, this time around. Part of her is actually _glad_ that she can avoid the federal building altogether, because she still hasn't figured out how she's supposed to deal with Lincoln, who is understandably very confused by it all, and his eagerness to be supportive is a bit overwhelming.

And for obvious reasons, she's been even more eager to stay away from the lab, especially from the man who spends most of his waking hours in there –and she's not thinking about Walter.

Therefore, the fact that she hasn't had to dress up in suits and comb her hair every morning has made it that much easier for her to wear nothing but baggy, dreary clothes while moping around her place, wishing she had some ice-cream in the freezer, but feeling too gloomy to actually go out to buy some.

God, she has turned into such a cliché that thinking about her own behavior instantly makes her cringe.

"I have to say, I was surprised by your call," Nina admits then, taking Olivia away from her thoughts. Her voice is soft and low, almost careful. "I thought you wouldn't want to have anything to do with me anymore."

Olivia raises her head to look at her again. Nina's surprise is legitimate, after the way she had spoken to her on their last encounter a few days ago.

Nina had visited her mere hours after her abduction, when she was still being 'held in" for observation at the hospital, even though she kept telling everybody that she _felt_ _fine_ –a lie, obviously. She refused to let herself sleep in spite of her exhaustion, or of the fact that she had fainted twice already since the EMTs had forced her in the ambulance, because every time she closed her eyes, Peter's face and his words echoed in her head, and the constant nausea she felt in the pit of her stomach and way beyond intensified dramatically.

Needless to say that when Nina had come into her room, freshly released from the FBI and worried sick about her, Olivia hadn't been in the best chatty mood. She had told her quite bluntly that she didn't need her here, didn't _want_ her here, that she barely remembered their life together anyway, and that she could go to Walter for details on the matter, because the Bishop men apparently seemed to know way more about this than anybody else, especially her.

"I'm sorry, for what I told you the other day," Olivia apologizes with a small shake of her head, more than a little mortified by the way she had behaved. Her emotions have really been untamable these days. "I was…I wasn't having a good night."

"Oh Olive…" Nina immediately replies, reaching out as if wanting to put a hand over Olivia's, but she stops halfway, frozen. Her hand comes to rest on the table instead, near the vase of flowers, and she shakes her head remorsefully. "I should be the one apologizing, honey. Of course you wouldn't want to have me around after the way this…wicked woman deceived you."

Olivia is slightly taken aback by this, only realizing now that Nina had assumed her rejection had been a results of how her alternate had tried to use their (barely lingering) bond against her. Olivia cannot say that she had enjoyed being deceived yet again, but emotionally speaking, it hadn't been the worst of it at the time, all things considered.

She offers Nina a rather painful smile. "I don't blame you for what _she_ did. I know what it's like to have another version of yourself pretending to be you." Nina offers her a knowing nod, obviously waiting for her to continue, now, and Olivia averts her eyes again. "I called you because…because even if I don't remember much of our past here, I know you are someone I can trust. And in the past I remember, I have actually sought you out a few times to talk about…about Peter."

Even pronouncing his name is challenging these days, but she forces herself to keep a straight face on as she raises her eyes again; she isn't surprised by the polite incredulity now written all over Nina's face.

"Peter…Bishop?" She asks tentatively.

As if on a cue, the waitress chooses that moment to come get their order. Olivia, who has already been served with bitter coffee and still doesn't feel hungry in the least, dismisses the menu card. Nina orders her some food anyway, offering her a disapproving look as she does so, actually managing to get a small smile out of Olivia.

Feeling slightly more comfortable now, she jumps right in as soon as they are alone again.

"I'm in love with Peter," she admits, quite bluntly. As she expected, Nina simply looks even more confused.

"I don't understand," she says, shaking her head with a frown.

Olivia briefly presses her lips together. "No, you wouldn't." She takes in a breath that is a little shaky, before starting explaining herself. "What I've told you, about how I don't remember much of our life together…it's more than that. The Cortexiphan didn't simply blur these memories, it replaced them with other memories, memories from another time. I remember everything from Peter's timeline." Nina remains silent, both her hands now joined near her face, observing her intently; it is clear that she's waiting for her to say more. "In that old timeline, Peter and I have been working together for a few years now," she continues. "And…well, you know how these things go."

"Yes," Nina nods her head understandably. "Working together closely with someone can bring about feelings."

If Olivia is rightly disturbed by the fact that Nina has just repeated word for word something she had already told her in that previous timeline, she can't say she's entirely surprised by the occurrence either. Strangest things have happened. But she's unable to hold her gaze as she speaks again, her eyes falling back on the dying white tulips, hanging miserably over the edge of the vase.

"Yeah, it does…" she eventually agrees with sorrow in her voice. She thinks about what a waste it all is, feeling like one of these withering flowers she's staring at. "The problem is…Peter doesn't want to have anything to do with me anymore, not here. He keeps on saying that he needs to go back to his timeline, to…to _his_ Olivia." She has to pause, then, the words burning the back of her throat like acidic bile.

Generally speaking, she tries her best not to think about how at this rate, Peter will soon leave permanently, to go find someone else, another version of her. He's going to leave her behind, and the only company she will have left will be these feelings already slowly burning her out from the inside.

She wants to keep this thought away, but it's hopeless; it's all over her mind again, digging holes in her heart.

She meets Nina's eyes, and for the first time today, she lets her pain really show, letting it echo in her voice as well. "I don't wanna feel like this anymore."

She doesn't know what she expects by confiding in Nina. She knows the older woman won't have a miracle answer, and she isn't expecting Massive Dynamic to provide her with a magic formula that will fix her problems or make this –_him_- go away.

She isn't looking for her compassion either, or for that look of sympathy now written all over her face. Truth be told, she wishes Nina wouldn't look at her that way, because if there is one thing Olivia really despises, it's being pitied in any way. But there's no escaping it, not with what she has just told her.

Who is she kidding, really? If she were honest with herself, she would admit that she's simply looking for that motherly support her distressed self desperately needs at that instant.

Eventually, a small, sadden smile appears on Nina's lips. "Do you remember Bobby Hastings?"

Olivia might not have been hoping for a miracle answer, but she definitely hadn't been expecting this question either.

She frowns, trying to refocus her thoughts, digging through the mass of indistinct memories that become harder and harder to remember by the day. "Uhm, vaguely," she says. "He took me to the prom, didn't he?"

Nina nods. "And he broke up with you not even two days after that, because you didn't want to go 'all the way with him', if I recall correctly. You were quite heartbroken, and I remember you saying these exact same words, that you didn't want to feel like this anymore."

Olivia stares at her, almost in confusion. She does remember this happening, but it's hardly relevant at the moment. "This is completely different."

"Of course it is," Nina agrees with another nod. "And yet, is it, really? Patience has never been your strong suit, and it is even less whenever feelings are involved and nothing but time can really do anything about it."

Olivia purses her lips sullenly, feeling slightly irritated now, and she shakes her head shortly. "No, you don't understand, this has nothing to do with some silly, teenage crush. This is…" she stops; one of her hands has come up against her chest, curled up up into a tight fist, and her eyes get blurry as her mind goes elsewhere. "This is the most unrelenting feeling. The pain...it just won't stop."

"I'm sorry you have to experience this," Nina says softly after another stretch silence. "I remember that feeling quite well, unfortunately; of all the kind of painful loves, I don't think there is anything worse than an unrequited love."

But Olivia shakes her head again, her eyes still lost in the distance, as she's looking into herself, into that sea of memories that not so long had made her feel like she had taken some of Walter's strongest drugs. Without warning, she had found herself in love all over again, re-experiencing that wondrous rush as if for the first time.

The way Peter's mere presence had made her body react had been nothing new, though; it seemed like they had always been oddly attuned to each other, from the moment they'd met in Iraq almost four years ago –or so she remembers, and that connection had only strengthened when they had become as close physically as two people can get. Even though the memories of her new life were unclear, she still remembered that she had felt that low, inexplicable hum, as soon as she had met him again, in that hospital room. She hadn't understood it, obviously, and it had troubled enough to lead her to try and stay as far away from him as humanly possible.

But then…but then, she had remembered. The pulsations within her flesh had once again linked themselves with hundreds and hundreds of memories, the smallest as well as the most significant, remembering how she had once stood vulnerable and shaky in front of him, asking him to come back for her, and remembering Friday nights spent cuddled on her couch, watching cheesy movies, while his massaging hand burrowed into her back.

And whenever their eyes had met on that day when she had felt so drawn to him after the return of her memories, she had known he remembered everything just as intensely. She had known her heart hadn't been the only one speeding up, both of them feeling the strong stirs of so many months spent without any contact at all. It had been as if a dormant fever had awakened, increasing the temperature in every inch of her, and the desire to touch him has never been so strong.

_This is real_, Olivia had thought, when he had briefly given in, his hand enclosed between hers, and his thumb had slowly brushed her skin, almost cautiously. The touch had been so simple, so fleeting, and yet there had been so much affection behind it, as well as a definite yearning that had shown all over his constricted face.

_This is real,_ Olivia had thought again a few hours later, when he had finally blocked out all of his doubts and had chosen to believe in that chance they were given, his kiss as eager and relieved as his words.

'_I look into your eyes, and I know it's you'_

To think about all of this only causes Olivia pain, now, because barely a day later, his attitude had been quite different.

_'When I looked into your eyes, what I saw was what I wanted to see.'_

Unrequited love.

Olivia doesn't know what kind of love there is between her and Peter, but unrequited isn't it.

And that is why a very pained smile appears on her lips when she speaks again, her eyes still unfocused. "This Olivia Peter is trying so hard to get back to…for all intents and purposes, I'm _her_. I have all the memories, all the feelings...And Peter…He's beyond desperate to leave, to get back home. That's how requited this used to feel to me."

When she meets Nina's eyes again, it is obvious that her distress is affecting her; she looks as equally pained and helpless. "I don't know what to tell you, Olive. This is a rather unique situation."

Olivia lets out a soft, humorless chuckle, shaking her head yet again almost imperceptibly, as her eyes fall back on the tulips. "Peter and Walter…they keep on saying that these memories aren't mine, that it is caused by my natural ability for empathy, which was obviously exacerbated by the Cortexiphan in my brain. They say it's just a projection of Peter's longing, that I'm…'_giving him what he want_s'…which is all kind of laughable, given the current situation."

"What do _you_ think," Nina asks her, then, gravely. "Do you agree with them?"

Olivia looks at her again, swallowing hard. She shrugs a shoulder, feeling her face constrict, unable to keep her anguish from showing. "I'm scared," she admits, then, quietly, defeated. "Because…without Jones' regular injections, my brain isn't full of Cortexiphan anymore. You would think that whatever effect it had on me when it comes to Peter should be going away, too. But it's not. The opposite is happening. These memories…him…they are what feel most real to me. And this life I'm supposed to have here…everything just feels foreign. It's getting worse, and I'm scared."

When Nina reaches out for her this time, she doesn't stop herself midway. She covers her hand with hers, squeezing gently but comfortingly, offering her a similar look. "Is there any way for Walter to…turn this around?"

Olivia shakes her head. "I don't know," she says, her voice thick with emotions. "I haven't exactly talked to him about it, not since the day it started, anyway, and at the time, I didn't want to reverse it."

At the time, she had been so sure of herself, blinded by the strength of her feelings. At the time, all she had wanted was for Peter to realize that he could stop searching for her, because she was right there in front of him.

And they had found each other…for about two minutes.

The truth is, even now, as heartbroken and nauseatingly miserable as she feels, that certainty hasn't gone away. She feels it, deep in her guts. This cannot possibly be a mere projection, a mirage. What she feels for him is rooted too deep within her to be nothing but a lie. And that might be what scares her the most.

What if it isn't a mirage?

And what if it is?

She doesn't say it out loud, but Nina reads it in her eyes, all over her face. And she finally tells her what Olivia had wanted her to say. Nina tells her what she needs to hear.

"I think you should talk to Peter. I know it hurts, but ultimately, what do you have to lose in doing so?"

Olivia knows she's right.

After all, she's already losing herself.

She's more than halfway gone.

* * *

><p><em>TBC...<em>

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: More angst next. L O L


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